Published: 31 July 2006
Government Planning and Housing Incentives
Minister for Housing and Planning Yvette Cooper has launched a consultation on planning and housing incentives, to ‘help’ local authorities to respond to the local housing needs of their community.
The Government says that it is ‘keen to see local authorities benefit when they respond to the housing demand in their local community’.
Under the current financial framework, local authorities have only limited short-term incentives to respond to housing needs.
Current figures show that there are over 200,000 new households being formed each year thanks to our ageing, growing population and more people living alone. (Why no specific mention of the hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants (both legal and illegal) who have increased the demand for housing since the EU expansion?)
However, we are only building about 160,000 additional homes a year, and ministers believe that local authorities do not have sufficient incentives to meet local housing need.
That is why the Government is consulting on proposals for a new housing delivery grant and reforms to the existing planning delivery grant to benefit local councils who respond to local housing demand and need to plan for additional houses.
This funding would be in addition to local infrastructure investment and is supposed to give local authorities the flexibility to invest in their area.
It builds on the recommendation in the Barker Review to allow local councils to keep additional council tax receipts for new homes.
Yvette Cooper said:
"We need new homes for the next generation, but councils with high levels of demand also need more support and more incentives to meet local needs.
Local authorities who are planning for the homes their communities need should benefit as a result.
This consultation will give councils the opportunity to give their views on proposals which would give them extra investment to help deliver more new housing."
The Barker Review on Housing Supply identified a significant shortfall in the number of homes being built to meet the demands of a growing and changing population.
The Government has since committed to increase home building to 200,000 per annum by 2016.
In order to meet this demand those involved in the delivery of housing need to be supported to meet the housing demands of the community.
The Government is also launching a consultation on the criteria to allocate £120m of Planning Delivery Grant for the financial year 2007/2008.
The proposed allocation criteria for PDG include:
· performance against targets for handling planning applications
· plan making performance
· delivery of net additions to housing stock (taking account of change of use and demolitions) in areas of high housing need and Growth Areas
· allocations to recognise low housing demand issues in Market Renewal Pathfinder areas
· location of Enterprise Areas, areas of high deprivation, which have been earmarked by the Chancellor to benefit from new and existing forms of Government assistance, such as exemption from stamp duty, and neighbourhood renewal projects, and
· performance at appeal
No specific mention in the announcement, one also notes, regarding infrastructure problems – most specifically the shortage of water in the South East! If the water companies cannot supply the existing population and, by the government’s own figures, global warming is going to reduce rainfall by up to 50%, is it really sensible to build more houses in the South East?
Both consultations will run until 17th October 2006.
Further information
Housing and Planning Delivery Grant consultation
Planning Delivery Grant 2007/08
Barker Review
DCLG - Sustainable Communities and Housing
Ofwat – water resources
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